<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>My Fear, My Terror by Skullszeyes</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23541370">My Fear, My Terror</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullszeyes/pseuds/Skullszeyes'>Skullszeyes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Death Stranding (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, Boys Kissing, Childhood Friends, Dubious Consent, Friendship, Humor, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Male Friendship, Male Protagonist, Male Slash, Mild Blood, Nihilism, Not Beta Read, Obsessive Behavior, Out of Character, Pining, Reunions, Rough Kissing, Sarcasm, Stalking, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:40:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,846</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23541370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullszeyes/pseuds/Skullszeyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam found out an old friend almost blew him and everyone up, and decided to see if he can find and talk to him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Fear, My Terror</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s been a long time, and he’d rather not think about it all that much, not that he wondered, nor has it ever come up for him to wonder. Now, he was simply trying to figure out how this had anything to do with him simply because when he was a kid, he did stupid shit with an idiot.</p><p>“The last time I saw my best friend...I don’t remember,” Sam said, sitting in the chair across from Deadman.</p><p>The man stared at him inquisitively, “You don’t remember the last time you—”</p><p>“Shut up,” Sam said, narrowing a glare at the man in the most passive way possible, although he has been somewhat familiar with him to interject while trying his best not to betray his own emotions, “I know, I was dealing with stuff back then, and one day, Higgs fell off the face of the world. How the hell should I know what happened to him afterwards?”</p><p>“Did you ever look for him?”</p><p>Sam sighed, curling his fingers, “I hardly thinks he cares.” It has been years with little contact between them, why should it matter now that they were older? The paths they walk were their own, and Sam had tried his best to keep his away from others. Not so sure about Higgs and his exploits lately.</p><p>“There’s a heart next to the name.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>Deadman gave him a small smile, mostly amused by Sam’s growing annoyance. “I think he cares.”</p><p>Sam looked down at the note that he had received from the man, and unfortunately the package had come through a Distro Center. It was scanned and opened after some people realized who it came from. This kind of thing has been going on lately, but not this explicit.</p><p>Higgs’ full name was at the bottom of the name with a heart beside it. It was addressed to him in a sort of complimentary way, and if Sam wasn’t annoyed by the events of what was happening, he would’ve ignored it entirely. He had recognized the cheeky way Higgs’ would speak, the way he wrote, and he could almost imagine how he’d talk to him simply by the note itself.</p><p>“I haven’t seen him in years,” Sam said, letting out a deep sigh. He’s been here way too long. “Since we were kids, since…” He wasn’t sure how he wanted to say it, and it wasn’t something he wanted to speak. It wasn’t his to share, even if Higgs’ disappeared right after it happened.</p><p>“Why do you think he wants to connect with you again?” Deadman asked. Sam almost laughed at the way he had said it, the package itself was taken by Fragile, disposed of before any of them could understand what was happening until it was done. Sam had almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but he hardly could when he was locked inside this square room with its cold stiff air, staring at a man who was asking the same old questions that Sam hardly cared about.</p><p>“Connect? He almost blew us all up,” Sam said.</p><p>“From what we know,” Deadman said, leaning back against his chair, “you weren’t at this Distro Centre until this morning when Fragile brought you here. You would’ve been back there in the next hour if the package hadn’t come.”</p><p>“So he knows, what am I supposed to do about that?” Sam asked.</p><p>Deadman shook his head. “No, Sam, I don’t think Higgs’ knew you were here, if anything...the note itself is a mockery on us, not you.”</p><p>It didn’t feel like a mockery. Higgs must’ve known he was here, it was addressed to him, the bomb was meant to destroy this place in a matter of forty seconds before Fragile had gotten to it. Her own distaste was subtle, but he saw it on her face when she returned after getting rid of it. She told them what happened before leaving, as if the thought of Higgs bothered her, the mention of his name and everything else about it was too much.</p><p>Sam guessed he could feel the same as well, but he didn’t. The last time he seen Higgs was when he was running through the mud, legs splashed with it, hands caked, his face a terror with deep bruises on his shoulders, his arm, his face, and with the mud, his nose had been bleeding. He was messy, even when he managed to find Sam and drag him down into the mud, their hair tangled and caked in it until they couldn’t stop laughing.</p><p>It seemed normal once, to feel that connection with someone until it was all taken away. Now, it didn’t seem to matter all that much, or that Sam didn’t want it to matter.</p><p>“What do you want me to do about this?” Sam asked, exasperated of the thought, of what Higgs has done.</p><p>“He threatened a lot of people, Sam, he almost destroyed this Distro Centre, and he has in the past…”</p><p>Sam blocked out what Deadman said, and he only nodded, agreeing with him. “You want me to find him?” That’s the reason for all of this? He had the most connection with a man who went around stealing military weapons, smuggling guns and bombs, even a nuke from what Fragile had mentioned before leaving.</p><p>“If it’s possible, seek him out, but keep your distance, he’s a dangerous man.” Deadman seemed sure of this, while Sam nodded, thinking that <em> dangerous </em> was an understatement to what Higgs has become. They sit and talk some more, forming a plan that could lure out Higgs, but Sam would rather do what he has to when locating him.</p><p>He’s able to leave the room after another thirty minutes. Sam returned to his room, drinks water, takes a shower, sleeps for a bit before getting changed. This time when he leaves, his mind is on Higgs and how he was going to find him. As he walks, feeling the cool wind of the morning wind, he tries to recall certain things about Higgs when they were kids.</p><p>One, he was secretive and defensive, and cheeky, when it came to it. Two, he didn’t eat right, and sometimes goes quiet whenever Sam asked too many questions.</p><p>Was it much to go on, probably not.</p><p>Sam sighed. He didn’t know why Higgs had sent the bomb, he didn’t know if Higgs knew he was inside the Distro Centre before Fragile had come and taken the bomb far away enough that it wouldn’t have killed anyone, including herself. He didn’t know, and he was having the hard time caring and caring too much.</p><p>As he walked, an hour went by, and the coolness of the day was almost becoming stifling. Then he heard something akin to Fragile before a hand grasped his arm, and he was taken from the soft field to hard cement, barely stumbling as he twisted around and heard a low chuckle coming from behind him.</p><p>A man stood a few feet away from him, holding a rifle, and wearing a golden mask. He stood an inch taller than Sam, and seemed amused by his reaction.</p><p>“Good to see you again, Sammy boy.”</p><p>Sam sucked in a sliver of breath, and almost relaxed, “Higgs.” </p><p>“It has been a long time, and look at you, as stoic as ever.” He chuckled, taking a step towards him.</p><p>Sam was tense as Higgs drew closer. “You almost blew me up the other day.”</p><p>Higgs sniffled, going still. “Did I?”</p><p>“The note.”</p><p>“Ah, yes, the note...you got that?” he asked, and Sam heard the barest shift in his tone, as if he was confused and immersed in what Sam was saying to him. He moved again, taking a step closer, and then going still. </p><p>“I was there,” Sam told him, furrowing his brows, “and fortunately, you asshole, Fragile was too.”</p><p>Higgs laughed, a hand to his chest, then he Jumped, a look of distortion that startled Sam before he was grabbed again before he was being pushed back and he slammed into the wall. Higgs stood in the center of a...room. It smelled like pizza and coffee. He watched him take off the golden mask, then he shoved the hood off, and pulled the black gas mask from his head.</p><p>He looked young with the same kind of smirk that Sam was used too when they were kids. He really grew into who he was now, but the confidence oozes into the air as he sauntered toward the table that’s against the wall, including two monitors, and a laptop. “I don’t usually bring people to my room, but you’re an old friend, so I don’t mind that you’re the exception.”</p><p>Sam peered at the wall, at the red string connecting throughout pictures upon pictures of him. All of them from different angles. There’s even dates next to them, some that has to do with three years ago, maybe five, and the recent was yesterday.</p><p>“It would’ve been <em> my bad </em>if you ended up opening that present,” Higgs said, a grin curving on his lips as he pulled out a chair and plopped down onto it.</p><p>Sam isn’t sure what he wants to say about the pictures. He steps away from the wall and finds his name written on the white board a few times, and when he looks back at Higgs, he opened one of the boxes and is currently munching out on a slice. He didn’t seem that bothered about the pictures, or what Sam would say about them.</p><p>“You didn’t know I was there?”</p><p>“I didn’t know,” Higgs said while chewing on his pizza. He seemed bored now, staring at the red string leading to all of the pictures of Sam. </p><p>“But you knew where I was for the past several years?” Sam asked.</p><p>“I don’t usually think about you,” Higgs says while taking another bite.</p><p>Sam wants to call bullshit, his stalker behavior told him that Higgs had way too much on his mind. Instead, he grabbed a chair, sat down, and picked up a slice of pizza from the box and asked about a drink.</p><p>Higgs smiled, wistful. “Feels as if we never moved on.”</p><p>“We did,” Sam said, frowning at the cold pizza. </p><p>Sam feels the desperation running through his fingers at the question, at what is displayed before the two of them, at the nonchalance of a murderer, the childhood that sings and sways, that only remarks on scars not meant to be pressed down upon. He knew because it was obvious, and he knew because he didn’t want to say it. Higgs had also known, but hardly cared about what Sam felt at the time when things changed between them. </p><p>
  <em> Your obsession is choking you, but it seems to be the only thing you think about. </em>
</p><p>“Is there something you want from all of this?” Sam asked once Higgs finished his second slice of pizza, and he had grabbed a drink from the minifridge and placed it between them to share. Like kids, the same ones making a mess in the mud, the ones who pressed fingers and nails into soft flesh that barely sunk deep enough for a scar, but one was made anyways.</p><p>He wanted to ask why the pictures, why not talk to him like when they were friends? Maybe it was what he was doing, and maybe because Higgs may always remain confident, charismatic, and full of endless sarcasm, there was also a vulnerability that he detested when he stood in front of it.</p><p>“Why the mask?”</p><p>“No one cared until I put it on.” He chuckled, legs placed on the table, chair balanced on the two back legs. “My world is colorless, I found I couldn’t live in such emptiness for long without a good reason to continue breathing.”</p><p>“So you smuggle, kill, and what, play God because you find the world empty?” Sam asked, not bothering to hide his disgust.</p><p>“I tried to find the connection,” Higgs said, throwing his pizza into the box alongside the other crust. “I couldn’t, even how much I tried.” Then he Jumped to Sam’s surprise, because this time, Higgs was so close with a golden knife skimming down the side of Sam’s face. “And I realized when I saw you again all those years after what I did...I couldn’t find it in anyone else, and it made me <em> hungry </em>.”</p><p>He didn’t know this stranger, but years severed, it was still there. The familiarity of mud and dirt when Higgs cut Sam, the blade going through smoothly, yet not as deep to do too much damage.</p><p>Higgs breathed heavily, gripping Sam’s jaw while watching the blood seep down along his face. “Blood always looked good on you.”</p><p>The sting, the silence, the suffocation of both of them and the connection that fell apart over and over again, even how much Sam wanted to pretend that Higgs disappearing was somehow a God given gift, at least until he showed up and started leading terrorists.</p><p>
  <em> Maybe it was a dream once, imaginary. </em>
</p><p>“I pretended everyday you didn’t exist,” Higgs said, fingers loosening against Sam’s jaw, his thumb caressing the skin, the look in his eyes were dreamlike, a reminder of what happened once years separated them. “I think it was better without one another, I had blood on my hands, in my head, burning me until all I could feel was what I had done, and even then, I was thrilled.” He chuckled, an empty sound. “Here you are, after all of that, and I can’t stop thinking about you.”</p><p>Sam placed a hand on Higgs chest and slowly pushed him away, giving each other space. “Is that why you have pictures of me?” he asked, arching a brow while Higgs rolled his eyes and waved his knife, “and my name all over your whiteboard. Thanks for the compliments.”</p><p>“What can I say, I rarely cared much about others.”</p><p>“Yeah, <em> the exception </em>, I know.” Sam touched the cut on his face, the blood, and then he glanced up and caught Higgs watching him with that same type of yearning that burned in his eyes.</p><p>“We’re not kids,” Sam said, wiping the blood off and scowling, “and you can’t do that, unless you also want to fight in the mud too.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t mind,” Higgs said, the knife gone from his hand.</p><p>Sam rolled his eyes. So this was how they decided to reunite, Higgs kidnaps him and expresses some obsessive qualities, while Sam is trying to keep calm so he could figure a way out.</p><p>“I have a job to do today,” Sam said, getting up from the chair.</p><p>Higgs smiled up at him. “My relief, and yet you’re leaving.”</p><p>Sam frowned. “I can’t stay here even if you want me too. I have a job, and people will ask…” Shit. He forgot.</p><p>Higgs catches on quick and starts nodding, placing a hand on his knee, and lets out a sigh. “I see, so they wanted you to find me, and you being you...and knowing me so well,” he says this sarcastically as he rises from his chair, “you knew I was going to eventually find you.”</p><p>“From the pictures on the wall, I thought maybe you would’ve a lot sooner, but it really took you five years to build up that courage.” Okay, so he’s also being cheeky, but Higgs was never easy to deal with.</p><p>Higgs sneered. “If that’s it, Sam Porter Bridges, our friendship is what it was when we were kids—”</p><p>“It didn’t have too, but you—”</p><p>“And now, it means nothing.” Higgs grabbed Sam and shoved him against the wall, smirking at Sam’s pained expression. “Fine, I get it, I understand what we are and where we stand, and what will happen after this, but let me tell you, Sammy, you’re my fear, my terror, the beauty of this world that keeps me breathing.”</p><p>Sam remembered the kiss, the feeling of Higgs pressing his mouth against Sam’s when they were kids. When they were sprawled out on the mud, and Higgs had shoved Sam down, laughing in his face as mud dripped along his short strands of hair, but the moment lasts to long, and Sam realized something is different than normal, the feeling of both of them is heightened, relaxed, aware, and Higgs had leaned down and pressed their mouths together.</p><p>This time, all those years ago, they aren’t slathered in mud and they aren’t kids. Higgs kissed him, less soft, but harsh and hungry, tasting Sam and moaning softly as Sam recalled how aware he had been, and how he is now that he knows Higgs is alive, and not in the greatest place in his life. He returned the kiss, the feeling of it, because he knows Higgs, he’s connected to him.</p><p>When the moment breaks, Higgs smiled as if he won, and he Jumped Sam back to the Distro Centre before leaving without saying goodbye, like he had done years before.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had this idea of writing a story about this, but I didn't want to extend it, so I decided to make it into a reunion where they simply talk it out and shit happens. :D I wanted to write Sam &amp; Higgs being sarcastic and knowing one another even while years have passed since they seen one another.</p><p><i>[I also took inspiration from Boris x Theo, and Henry Winters.]</i> It's subtle, though, but I tried. :/ </p><p>I hope you enjoyed.</p><p>Comments and/or Kudo's are appreciated.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>